George Borteh
20 April 2006
Since the seating of the Ellen led government on January 16, 2006, over 6,000 Liberian refugees have returned home and more are expected this week.
According to the Country Representative of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugee (UNHCR) in Liberia, Mr. Mengesha Kebede, about 2000 Liberian refugees are expected from Sierra Leone and Guinea at the middle or the end of this week.
With this large number of Liberian refugees returning, the UNHCR boss said UNHCR is in a serious logistics nightmare.
"Because of the increase of number of Liberian refugees all over that are requesting our assistance to return back home, now we are in logistics nightmare," he noted.
The UNHCR boss made the disclosure yesterday at the Liberia Opportunities Industrial Center, Central Office in New Matadi Estate during which time Mr. Kebede, on behalf of UNHCR, donated over 15 computers for training program for returning Liberian refugees.
At the same time the UNHCR chief executive sounded a warning that the UNHCR job is not responsible for transporting refugees back and forth to their various countries.
"We are not here to transport refugees back to their countries," he stressed. But he however said the UNHCR does provide transportation assistance but stressed further that UNHCR's primary role is to ensure the initial reintegration of refugees and internally displaced people when they go back to respective communities.
The program which also marked the official launching ceremony of the LOIC/UNHCR computer training program for returning Liberian refugees, brought together some top Government officials including the Education Minister Dr. Joseph Korto.
Launching the program, Dr. Korto pledged the support of the Liberian government and expressed hope that similar gesture will be extended to other parts of Liberia.
He then disclosed that the Liberian government has selected 20 high schools around the country as part of the program to empower Liberian schools with computer training knowledge and about 500 computers now on hand he said.
For his part, Rev. Walter Richards and executive of LOIC expressed thanks to the UNHCR family toward LOIC and a MOU was signed between UNHCR and LOIC.
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